22 December 2007

Coming to You Live From South Carolina

As we speak, the boy is downstairs, in the loving arms of Grandma. This is a beautiful thing for mama, who relished her first shower completely alone in weeks. Grandma is no doubt feeding said infant cheese sandwiches on wheat bread* but I assure you at this glorious towel-wrapped moment I do not care.

I have a few things that have been poking in the back of my head, demanding to be blogged. I present you with:

-- A FO! This is a wee lovey made for Em from Plymouth Heaven gifted to me at my Florida baby shower. I think I blogged about it ages ago, possibly before Em was born (way to finish project, huh?)

And another view:

You may notice something amiss is the middle? Um, yeah. I tried to knit on a bear head, a la this, and it did not work. Compared to the Heaven, any other yarn seems as scratchy and nasty as the cheapest acrylic. Knit in Heaven, a bear head has all the definition of a lump of snow. So, rather than just rip it back (which is a trick with the Heaven) I had the grand idea of just snipping it off. You see where this is going--I snipped the blanket instead of the head and was faced with a big old hole. Some blind sewing later (this yarn is nothing if not camouflaging) and the whole is closed, if ugly. The boy loves it, though.

For the record, it was knit on size 13 (9 mm) needles. I cast on 35 stitches, I think, and alternated four rows of the variegated and two of white in garter stitch. (There is no such thing as stitch definition with this yarn, so don't even bother with the knits and purls.) I finished it off with a double crochet edging in the white, with the biggest hook I had around. It's about 12" by 18" (30 x 45 cm), perfect for a little lovey.

-- Next up: Yarn!

I won a contest of over at Imbrium's a few months back and received this lovely skein of Mountain Colors Bearfoot as my prize. Yum-o. Sadly, it arrived while I was in the end-of-semester crunch and aside from photographing it for Ravelry, I totally forgot to mention it. Regardless of that glaring blogger error, I am still really happy to have won my first contest and get such a coveted (by me) prize.

-- Finally, a WIP. Kinda. Young Master Em is rapidly outrgowing his hats (I have sworn since the day he was born that boy had a big head). I told Mr. C that I would be more than happy to (finally) knit a hat, if he would pick it out. He picked a Viking helmet. Of course. (I only have a Ravelry link to it). Here is the "metal" band with rivets:

And here is the "leather" helmet portion:

Sadly, it is stalled because the pattern was on her blog but exists no longer. Being the Queen of Prepared that I am, I failed to print it out. For once, I was prepared to make that leap to FO and have been thwarted. I'm hoping she'll repost that page soon.

-- Finally (for real this time), here's a picture of my six month old boy. (I am THAT woman who bores everyone with pictures of how cute her kid is.) He's airing out a bit from a teething rash, here, after mama learned that he needs to air out WITH a diaper (cloth, of course) rather than without. Hence the bumper in the wash.

I don't know how much time I'll have again until after Christmas, when I'm back from SC, so Merry Merry to those that celebrate it. For those that don't, I'll see you at the Chinese restaurant.

*This has become a joke between my sister and I, as my mother attempted to feed a three month-old Em some cheese, and just yesterday tried to give his six month-old self wheat bread. Considering my personal list of allergies is longer than my list of non-allergic foods, my heart stops when I see my child fed things known to cause life-long intolerances. Fun times with the Fam.

About Me

Once upon a time a story was told to a little girl about how an ugly ugly duckling turns into an awfuly pretty swan. Though the little girl was quite enchanted with this, she promptly forgot it for many years.

Not knowing how nasty swans can really be, this girl's momma named her now 23 year-old akward and freshly divorced daughter "cygnet," to show that beautiful swanness was just around some near corner.

Nine years later, this now-grown daughter rethinks the wisdom of this, as a grumpy swan currently attacks all her windows, leaving scared kitties and depositing lots of swan poo in its wake.